Death Valley is a pull-apart basin, as originally proposed by Burchfiel and Stewart (1966), formed in the last 3 m.y. a. Pull-apart basins are characterized by steeply dipping bounding faults (e.g., the Dead Sea graben, Garfunkel and Ben-Avraham, 1996). the remaining members contain a variety of Middle Cambrian trilobites. 252. Controversy surrounds the use of Furnace Creek water to support the resort (complete with a swimming pool) and nearby facilities, including a golf course. Pleistocene-Pliocene In this figure, the detachment surface is shown schematically tracking across the top of the Panamint Range, rather than underneath it. 74, 1: 376-381, rocks that mysteriously move across its surface, "USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1 meter Downloadable Data Collection from The National Map 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) - National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) National Elevation Data Set (NED)", Death Valley National Park Furnace Creek Area (U.S. National Park Service), "Eureka Dunes, Death Valley National Park", "Death Valley Has a Secret Shrine toTea", "Earthquake: 3.2 quake strikes near Teakettle Junction in Death Valley", USGS: Death Valley National Park Virtual Geology Field Trip, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Places_of_interest_in_the_Death_Valley_area&oldid=1150267321, This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 05:09. This age is an important constraint on initiation of Basin and Range extension, as the Bat Mountain Formation is interpreted to have been deposited in a basin formed during the early stages of extension (Cemen et al., 1999). The 3 Ma restoration is shown in two phases for convenience. Cross sections in Figures 6, 8, and 9 are labeled A, B, and C. APAguereberry Point; ARArgus Range; BWBadwater; BMBlack Mountains; CCCopper Canyon; CHConfidence Hills; CMCottonwood Mountains; DPDarwin Plateau; DVDeath Valley; EMEagle Mountain; FMFuneral Mountains; FPFuneral Peak; GMGrapevine Mountains; GRGreenwater Range; HCHanaupah Canyon; HMHunter Mountain; IRInyo Range; KRKingston Range; MPMormon Point; NDFZNorthern Death Valley fault zone; NRNopah Range; PRPanamint Range; PVPanamint Valley; SDFZSouthern Death Valley fault zone; TBTecopa Basin; TCTrail Canyon; TMTucki Mountain; TPTelescope Peak. Antelope Valley is medium-gray, finely to coarsely crystalline limestone and silty limestone, and dark-yellowish-to-orange, grayish-orange and dark-yellowish brown limestone, and yellowish-orange to pink silty partings; beds are commonly burrowed, and have yellowish-orange to pale red tracks and trails on bedding planes; contains orthocone cephlapods, gastropods (Maclurites and Palliseria) pelmatozoans, Receptaculites, and trilobites; also contains ooids and oncoids. An alternating bluish-gray limestone and thin light-gray bands of marble with fusilinids and crinoid columnals in the upper section. Its summit rises 11,331 feet (3,454m) above Badwater Basin, the lowest point in Death Valley at 282 feet (86m). From these data, Hunt and Mabey (1966) assume that about a third of the fill [of Death Valley] is Quaternary and that the rest is Tertiary (Hunt and Mabey, 1966, p. A72). Hornblende quartz monzonite with variations. 19 Keeler Canyon Formation Mosaic Canyon Death Valley Marble Set in Time. In the Black Mountains, the detachment surface tracks over the top of the Badwater turtleback and is covered by Late Miocene to Pliocene sediments of the Artist Drive Formation. The Noonday Dolomite ( Fig. Mostly equivalent with the Highland Peak Formation as use by Tschanz and Pampeyan (1970) in Lincoln Country. Scolithus ? The first restoration at 3 Ma removes the graben formed as a result of pull-apart basin formation; strike slip, which would be perpendicular to the page (Topping, 1993), is not incorporated. Consists of a lower lagoonal or mudflat limestone. These low hills are composed of clastic sediments of the Confidence Hills Formation (Wright and Troxel, 1984), with an age range of 1.72.2 Ma (Knott et al., 2005). c. Includes (from top to base) Smoky, Halfpint, and Dunderberg Shale members. (1999) as 200 10 kA. It is an endorheic basin that can form a lake after heavy rain. Numerous trilobite trash beds in lower part yield fragments of olenellid trilobites. 17 Butte Valley Formation [7] As sand moves down the dune face it produces a booming noise, known as singing sand phenomenon, due to the small grain size and loose, dry packing. No fossils. The Panamint Range, rather than being a large fault block detached from above the Black Mountains, is a core complex like the northern end of the range at Tucki Mountain. 1) developed and has forced deformation to the east, into the ECSZ. In basal 100 feet, trilobite trash beds containing Elburgis, Pseudagnostus, Horriagnostris, Elvinia , Apsotreta. Unit forms massive cliffs, 975 m thick in northwestern Spring Mountains, 1,100 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains, 2,100 m thick in the Funeral Mountains, 1,500 m thick in the Belted Range and 700 m thick at Bare Mountain. Round Trip Length: 2-7.8 miles (3.2-12.6 km) depending on route. Ventifact Ridge is a part of a basaltic lava flow. b. Thick-bedded, fine-grained, and even-grained dolomite, mostly light color. *3 Members* a large, cliff-forming carbonate unit with three members (Dunderberg/Halfpint Members, Smokey Member) basal shale and silty limestone beds of this formation are persistently fossiliferous characterized by trilobites, conodonts, and the brachiopod Linnarssonella - Dunderberg/ Halfpint Members are divided into seven facies and contain sponge Hintzespongia, spicule-like elements of Chancelloria, eocrinoid fragments, lingulid and acrotretid brachiopods, trilobites, and single-element species of paraconodonts and protocondonts - Smokey Membercharacterized by the black and buff colored banded dolomite also contains stromatolites and thrombolites within packstones and grain stones, a dark dolomite above the middle of the Nopah Formation contains small-silicified Trempleauan gastropods, a singular mollusk Matthevia, and trilobites. Thickness more than 150 feet, variable because of shearing. The oldest outcropping basin deposit consists of flat-lying basalt as old as 5.12 Ma (Calzia and Rm, 2000). per adult. The Panamint Range is more symmetric, with perhaps a slightly steeper western flank. Their paper was published in the same year as Hunt and Mabey's (1966) seminal paper that mapped the geology of Death Valley. 3 Ma, initiation of the East California Shear Zone started development of the present-day topographic depression of Death Valley, formed as a pull-apart basin associated with this strike slip. Thickness, 1,500 feet. Within Death Valley, the best region for slot canyons seems to be Tucki Mountain, south of Stovepipe Wells village.Here are found Grotto Canyon, Mosaic Canyon, Stretched Pebble Canyon and Little Bridge Canyon, all quite close to CA 190, though others to the south and east are much further away from the highway.These canyons typically have many short enclosed sections ending beneath a dryfall . b. Holocene+Pleistocene= Fan gravel; silt and salt on floor of playa, less than 100 feet thick. This phase of deformation coincided with severe crustal stretching that created the deep valleys and high mountains of this part of the Basin and Range Province. 4) commenced prior to intrusion of the 10.6 Ma Little Chief stock, which was intruded to 3 km below the contemporary surface. Scientists call all manifestations of this large body of water Lake Manly. In Pliocene time, the Furnace Creek and Funeral Formations were deposited in the northern Black Mountains, these sections being predominantly clastic with little evidence for syndepositional tectonism. Topography (USGS DEM, 2009) in gray shades fills in spaces where there are no Cenozoic sediments. b. Miller and Pavlis (2005) divided these models into two categories, depending on how strike-slip and low-angle detachment faulting are combined. In Snow and Wernicke's (2000) reconstruction, this correlation is used to restore the Panamint Range to a position adjacent to the Nopah Range. Visitors can hike on trails to the bottom or around the rim. c. White, pink, and red orthoquartzite; laminated to thick-bedded, commonly cross-bedded, and well cemented; has skolithos. Compiled from Wright et al. In this new interpretation, a detachment surface tracks over the crest of the Panamint Range, rather than underneath the range, and the Black Mountains turtlebacks are megamullion structures formed as a result of strike slip. Death Valley National Park is one of many units within the National Park service established because of its underlying geologic theme. This is the greatest topographic relief in the conterminous U.S. 4), the canyon cuts through mylonized dolomite. Basin and Range extensional allochthons occur along the east flank of the range; these formed during MioceneEarly Pliocene Basin and Range extension. The main extensional detachment surface is gently folded into the arched topographic surface of Tucki Mountain (Wernicke et al., 1988b). At ca. Death Valley National Park is not a summertime destination, at least in my opinion. Unit is 580 m to 1,700 m thick in the NTS area, about 1,000 m thick in the Cottonwood Mountains, 1,150 to 1,350 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains and Nopah Range respectively, about 610 m thick in the norther Last Chance Range, 445 to 900 m thick in the Spring Mountains and southern Sheep Range, and reaches a maximum thickness of 1,633 m in the Groom Range area, Lincoln County. The Noonday Dolomite (Fig. A hapsiphyllid tetracoral, Triplophyllites was collected immediately south of Rest Spring. The second phase was the development of Death Valley as a pull-apart basin, with higher-angle faults and transtensional motion. At Lake Hill, the lower unit contains the cephalopod Armenoceras and several species of the brachiopod Lepidocyclus. The turtlebacks are megamullions very similar to megamullions adjacent to seafloor spreading centers. Dips of the flanks of the Panamint Range are shallow, averaging 10. In NTS area, unit is from 700 to 1,150 m thick, about 600 m thick in the Montgomery Mountains, and 640 to 820 m thick in the northwest Spring Mountains. - See 519 traveler reviews, 417 candid photos, and great deals for Death Valley National Park, CA, at Tripadvisor. a. (2009) suggest that the later event at 2.8 Ma dates onset of strike-slip faulting along the Hunter Mountain fault zone and initiation of strike slip in this portion of the ECSZ. These colors are caused by the oxidation of different metals (iron compounds produce red, pink and yellow, decomposition of tuff-derived mica produces green, and manganese produces purple). From the 1930s through the 1960s the springs provided water for the successful talc mines in the nearby Ibex Hills. Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet (2,700m).[6]. Brachiopods abundant, especially Spirifer , Cyrtospirifer , Productilla , Carmarotoechia , Atrypa. (2002), in this case supplemented from the map of Hunt and Mabey (1966). Wowzers. Shorelines of ancient Lake Manly are preserved in several parts of Death Valley, but nowhere is the record as clear as at Shoreline Butte. Sediment age at the base of this well was estimated by Lowenstein et al. Wildrose Canyon has 2 campgrounds above the kilns, Thorndyke at 7,490 feet and Mahogany Flat at 7923 feet. Later addition of magnesium changed the limestone, a rock made of calcium carbonate, to dolomite, a calcium-magnesium carbonate. These observations imply that details of the structural connection between Tucki Mountain and the east end of the Funeral Mountains must be reexamined, although a probable Early Miocene age of the Tucki Mountain section can still be used to date extension at Tucki Mountain (Cemen et al., 1999). The ghost town of Ballarat had 400 residents at the turn of the 20th century when mines were active in the area. Detachment faults (italicized): TDTucki Detachment; EFEmigrant Detachment; HFHarrisburg fault; HCHanaupah Detachment. Near the end of this extensional phase and lasting until ca. (1999) relate this fault system to the pull-apart fault system that Burchfiel and Stewart (1966) postulated in their model for formation of Death Valley. Late Precambrian Hells Gate is a point of interest located in Death Valley National Park, at the intersection of Daylight Pass Road and Beatty Road. Periodic flash floods carry rocky debris (sediment) eroded from Mosaic Canyon and the surrounding hillsides toward the valley below. (1994) provide an interpretation of eruption volume versus time, which the sawtooth pattern in Figure 3 schematically follows. per group (up to 4) Small Group Guide Tour: Death Valley Day Tour with Sunset and stars Viewing. b. Basal unit is well-bedded quartzite above 1,650 feet thick ' shaly Unit above this 520 feet thick contains lowest olenellids in section; top unit of dolomite and quartzite 400 feet thick. There is no apparent reason for these rocks to be in the footwall of the detachment at Tucki Mountain and in the hanging wall further south along the range, as they would need to be if the entire Panamint Range is allochthonous. Noteworthy among the geologic features of the Death Valley region of eastern California is an extensively exposed accumulation of sedimentary rock and sill-forming diabase, Precambrian in age, as much as 5,500 m thick, and essentially unmetamorphosed. The structural connection between the Panamint Range and Black Mountains is illustrated in Figure 9. In the second 3 Ma restoration, the topography that formed as a result of young transtensional strike slip is removed. The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are at the northern end of the valley floor and are nearly surrounded by mountains on all sides. The change from Basin and Range extension to strike slip between 8 and 3 Ma seen in the Death Valley region is very close to age ranges of changes in similar tectonic settings seen in several other localities in the ECSZ (Stockli et al., 2003; Faulds et al., 2005; Oldow et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2009; Andrew and Walker, 2009). Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, prior to Death Valley becoming a national monument in 1934, it was discovered that the salt and gravel beds of the Devil's Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet (300m). They were then cut by strike-slip faults, forming the flanks of the Death Valley pull-apart basin. Mon-Fri 7am-5pm PT. Upper and lower third of units consists of interbedded red and brown quartzite, brownish green micaceous siltstone and minor orange-weathering silty dolomite. Highly fossiliferous shale member 100 feet thick at base, upper 1 200 feet is dolomite in thick alternating black and light hands about 100 feet thick. Fundulus and Cyprinodon osteichthyes fish and a number of turtle scutes and rodent teeth and skull have been found. The Dolomites (Italian: Dolomiti [dolomiti]; Ladin: Dolomites; German: Dolomiten [dolomitn] (); Venetian: Doomiti [doomiti]: Friulian: Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range in northeastern Italy.They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Valley (Pieve di . Also in this area, McKenna and Hodges (1990) mapped the 8.69.4 Ma Trail Canyon volcanic sequence (Fig. 5 Funeral Formation 18 to 5 Ma, low-angle Basin and Range extension transported allochthons consisting of Late Proterozoic through Early Paleozoic miogeoclinal section along detachment surfaces that, as extension continued, were exhumed from mid-lower crustal levels to the surface. Goniatite coquina beds, formed chiefly of the cephalopod Cravenoceras hesperiam, occur within this formation. Practical Details. Chemical weathering and hydrothermal alteration cause the oxidation and other chemical reactions that produce the variety of colors displayed in the Artist Drive Formation and nearby exposures of the Furnace Creek Formation. (2009), in a detailed analysis of the Inyo Mountains, report a phase of normal faulting starting at 15.6 Ma and initiation of strike-slip faulting on the Hunter Mountain fault at 2.8 Ma. Other historic charcoal kilns in the United States include the Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns at Owens Lake, the Piedmont Charcoal Kilns in Wyoming, and the Walker Charcoal Kiln in Arizona. Artist's Palette is an area on the face of the Black Mountains noted for a variety of rock colors. These volcanics were deposited partly on the exhumed detachment surface from the earlier phase of Basin and Range extension. b. Well-bedded quartzite in beds 1-5 feet thick comprising thick members of quartzite 700-800 feet thick separated by 500 feet of purple shale, crossbedding conspicuous in quartzite. (2000). contains the lowest dry point in North America. A lithologic correlation with a similar conglomerate-sandstone succession at Tucki Mountain has also been used to constrain both the age and amount of extension along the Furnace Creek fault zone (Wernicke et al., 1988b). The Late Miocene intrusives consist of the mafic Willow Springs pluton and the felsic Smith Mountain granite. As groundwater exploded into steam due to the heat of magma underneath, an empty pit was left behind and the debris spread around the field. Dips of the Paleozoic strata at the eastern end of the section are from Hunt and Mabey (1966), as is the location of the detachment below these strata; Figure 7 is a summary of stratigraphic nomenclature for these older sediments. The main visitor center of the park is located here as well as the Oasis at Death Valley resort complex. Other fossils: foraminifera, coelenterates, solitary/colonial corals, bryozoan, goniatite and orthceroid cephalopods, gastropods, pelecypods, crinoid stems, brachiopods, phillipsid trilobites, an annelid worm, and petrified wood. The mountain that Dante's View is on is part of the Black Mountains which along with the parallel Panamint Range across the valley from what geologists call a horst and the valley that is called a graben. 2) and geology from the digital map of Workman et al. The Noonday Dolomite has since been tilted from uplift. a. Lacustrine and alluvial fan deposits found throughout the valley surface. the dolomite member contains conical calcareous fossils including metazoan small shelly fossils of Cloudina in another member there are rare occurrences of the trace fossil Planolites. Syringopora have also been found. c. Quartzite, conglomeratic quartzite, siltstone, shale and minor limestone and dolomite beds. The area covered ranges from Kingston Peak to the southeast of Death Valley, northeast to the Southwest Nevada Volcanic Field (SWNVF), and as far west as the Darwin Plateau on the west side of Panamint Valley. 4). It is intriguing that the ocean megamullion matches fairly well with the shape of the basement surface of the Badwater turtleback. The pull-apart concept has also been applied to the Panamint Valley, the basin on the west side of the Panamint Range, which links via the Hunter Mountain strike-slip fault northwards into Saline Valley (Burchfiel et al., 1987; Lee et al., 2009). Fossils include brachiopods, colonial and solitary corals, gastropods, pelmatozoan ossicles, and stromatoporoids. This trail is more about the journey than the destination, so keep your eyes open and enjoy the beauty as you walk. 37 Noonday Dolomite 32 Carrara Formation . Contained within its boundaries is a diverse rock record stretching throughout most of geologic time. The strong link between Pacific-North America plate motion and structural evolution of the ECSZ is emphasized by this synchronous timing. The Inyo Mountains, south of the White Mountains, are bounded to the east by the East Inyo fault zone, which links via the Hunter Mountain fault to the Panamint Valley. Wright et al. Over time the small amount of solutes in the water accumulate to form this linear salt pan. a. From 1.8 billion-year-old metamorphic rocks exposed in the Black mountains, to recent playa sediments deposited in the valley basins, Death Valley possesses a superb geologic record. The two events responsible for the chaotic appearance of the Amargosa Chaos did not occur until over half a billion years later, during Mesozoic or Early Tertiary time. The wetland lies at the southern tip of the Ibex Hills, on the floor of Death Valley and just northeast of the Amargosa River. Two quartzite beds, each about 3 feet thick, near base, numerous sandstone beds 8001 000 feet above base. They are made up of Proterozoic basement gneiss, early Tertiary pegmatitic intrusives, and Late Miocene plutonic rocks. 18 to 5 Ma, involved Basin and Rangestyle low-angle extension with fault blocks made up predominantly of Paleozoic sediments moving on detachment faults that exhumed rocks from mid crustal levels.